When She Loved Me
by dagan
Summary: A really sweet fic in memory of QT, AKA Michael Cuccione


Title: When She Loved Me  
Author: dagan  
Archive: Yeah, I'll start my own page soon, if Kyle or Dylan helps me. If not, then I'll have to take website design.  
Disclaimer: You have to be living under a rock not to know who JK owns. 'When She Loved Me' is from the Toy Story II soundtrack, sung by Sarah Macgauhlan  
  
A/N:: Hey, I'm tired. I like the very beginning of this; I really do suggest studying your hands. You hold magic in them. A cereus plant only blooms at night to escape the daily heat.  
  
A/N 2:: Okay, I finally got off my lazy ass and went over to geocities and got myself a pretty little site. Except, I wouldn't suggest heading over there soon. I'll fix it up soon, but if you want to see a vague attempt at understanding technology, check out http://www.geocities.com/daganthemuggle/fanfiction.html. Go ahead, laugh.  
  
~.~  
  
*When somebody loved me  
Everything was beautiful  
Every hour spent together  
Live within my heart*  
  
His dark face glowed with excitement. The human body is absolutely amazing if you take the time to study your hand. Everything works together to create living art, as was Dean's face. I know why it glowed, though; the fatal words that sprang from his mouth didn't faze me.  
  
"Neville, Truth or Dare?"  
  
Yes, Truth or Dare. No Avada curse here folk. Nothing is more dangerous than teen-aged boys armed the options of truth or dare.  
  
I've rarely joined their games before. Other engagements, Sprout's cereus plant threatening to bloom with no audience, homework, my own shyness, have prevented it. I really must join more often, for that night I was pelted with truths and dares. They were happy: new memories to hear, new antics to laugh at, a new friend in their midst; I was happy: being a member of *them*, not an acquaintance, but a real friend.  
  
"Truth."  
  
His face contorted as he separated questions that had already been already asked from questions still needing to be asked. Harry and I amused ourselves with a finger-flicking race; it's one of those stupid things that immediately entertain you. Dean once said Muggles have an equivalent: some of their writing utensils, called 'pens', click a cartridge with pops down. They race by clicking the pens.  
"Who was the other person involved in your first kiss?"  
  
Girls. This topic never seems to bore them. They were amazed I, too, like girls. In fact, according to them, I'm 'The Ladies' Man'. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it has to do with my history of summer get-togethers.  
  
'You didn't meet Hanneli at a party.'  
  
Hanneli  
  
"Well? Hello, Neville?"  
  
They say when I look confused I look like an owl.  
  
"Oh... yeah... Hana Goldstein. She's... an old friend."  
  
Their faces brightened as they stored away this piece of useless information. Seamus is the best at useless knowledge: ask him what day he wore his green shirt last week, he'll answer "Last Tuesday." Ask him how long a cubit is, he'll answer "About point five meters [about eighteen inches]." Ask him what the main ingredient in the Telepathos potion, and he becomes a Neville-owl.  
  
"What was she like, Hana?"  
  
Hanneli...  
  
*And when she was sad  
I was there to dry her tears  
And when she was happy  
So was I  
When she loved me*  
  
When I met her, I thought she was a lost angel; instead, she was a five-year-old with a freshly skinned knee. My beautiful goddess came from a newly separated, strict Orthodox Jewish parents. I found this out as I cleaned and bandaged her knee.  
  
Gran knew her mum. They thought we should remain friends. Wicked matchmakers. "Hanneli needs some friends." Ms. Goldstein would say.  
  
Hanneli. My prepubescent tongue slaughtered her delicate name. This frustrated her until she gave herself her own nickname, Hana. I knew she hated it, so I rarely called her by name. She grew to like it, later in life; by then, I could pronounce 'Hanneli'. I sure tortured that poor girl.  
  
She became my best friend. We forgot our insane families, hers yelling in Yiddish, mine willing to curse everyone who sneezed differently. We forgot she lived with no dad, that I had no parents at all. We were simply Hanneli and Neville. We instead remembered who was who in our last game of Harry Potter versus You-Know-Who-- we always traded off. We remembered every detail about the other's life, so she never asked if I wanted some milk, and I never bothered her about her grandmother's blue hair.   
  
*Through the summer and the fall  
We had each other that was all  
Just she and I together  
Like it was meant to be*  
  
She was a witch, but... I don't know. I thought she was squib, since she never did anything, but I guess she wasn't. She knew everything about everything. She even followed Quidditch more loyally than Seamus or Ron.  
  
She was my goddess. Every day she came to relieve me from the drudgeries of home. Gran loved her, everyone did, so much that she could get permission for me to go anywhere. Hanneli could probably persuade Voldemort to kill himself.  
  
When we were six, she wanted me to join her on a trip to an art museum in London. Her aunts wanted to see a specific exhibit before it left to be displayed in Chicago. Hanneli insisted we should go, to learn about beauty and nature. Zafia thought it was funny to hear such big words come out of such a nymph. But the other aunt, Zuzana, realized Hanneli had good reasoning, especially for a six-year-old, and promptly asked Gran, who agreed with both Zuzana and Hanneli.  
  
The art was magic, simply magic. Hers aunts trusted us to keep together and to meet them by the museum restaurant by one. It was a Muggle museum, but Hanneli knew her way around quite well. Taking my hand in hers, we set off, exploring each framed masterpiece.  
  
  
"Look, Neville." Her voice was hardly above a whisper, but still majestic in its own accord. Every work captured beauty in itself. These were my first taste of Muggle art and... Hanneli understood and simply said "Look, Neville."  
  
*And when she was lonely  
I was there to comfort her  
And I knew she loved me*  
  
"She sounds nice."  
  
Drat the Neville-owl. Had I been talking about her this whole time?  
  
"Whatever happened between you two?"  
  
"Can we meet her someday?"  
  
"No, I'll get to that part."  
  
Never had a person feel do right in my arms. I was seven when we first hugged, and I knew this wouldn't be the last time she'd be found in my hold.  
  
Her mum and aunts were debating about moving to Leeds, hours away from our Pomsington. "Not for a few years." they said. "No until Hanneli finishes primary school."  
  
A few years seemed so long back then; like when you're seven a week lasts an eternity and now you go to sleep and suddenly it's Friday again. Now, when I think back, I only had a few years with mum and dad, and...  
  
Hanneli thought a few years were too short, too. She went so far as to talk with Gran about living with us. I was ecstatic and agreed whole-heartedly almost immediately. Gran heard the entire case through, occasionally agreeing with Hanneli. When she'd finished, Gran had only one counter-point: Neville will be going away to school in a few years..."  
  
It was then a rift was created. She, Hanneli, knew I was a practicing wizard, unlike her, but neither of us mentioned the difference until then. It was then I began hating being a wizard with a passion. Not when Voldemort attacked my parents, not when my relatives abused me to get some glimmer of magic, but when I was told I couldn't keep Hanneli because I was going to Hogwarts.  
  
*So the years went by  
I stayed the same  
But she began to drift away  
I was left alone  
Still I waited for the day  
When she'd say "I will always love you."*  
  
The rift continued to widen. We didn't spend nearly so much time together. A lot of times she'd mention magic almost mockingly; I remember once I was bummed about a kite stuck in a tree in the park. She looked at me with hard eyes and said "Why don't you use *magic* to get it out, eh?" The words rained on me like silver bullets.  
  
She began making new friends at school. Her school, not mine. More friends who were Jewish, squib or Muggle, *female* Each new addition drove the bullets deeper into my heart.  
  
I left for Hogwarts that next year. Gran threw a party in my honor. Hanneli didn't show up. The next day Gran and I left for London. Hanneli didn't see me off. I waited patiently for owls from home everyday. Hanneli never wrote. "Being a wizard means giving up certain privileges." Gran once said. Being a wizard meant giving up Hanneli.  
  
Somehow I thought if I denied being a wizard, she'd come back. That's why I did so badly my first term. Okay, I admit I'm a clumsy palurdo*, but I understood much more than I ever let one. It didn't work, though. Hanneli never wrote, and I simply fell behind in everything.  
  
*Lonely and forgotten  
Never thought she'd look my way  
She smiled at me and held me just like she use to do  
Like she loved me  
When she loved me*  
  
When I went home over winter holidays, Hanneli was waiting in my room. She immediately apologized for not writing. They'd found a cyst in her spleen. "Hodgkin's," they said.  
  
Goddess don't die. They're not allowed to. Somebody forgot to tell Hanneli that.  
  
We spent every minute of my break together. From the minute we woke until the minute we went to bed we were inseparable. It remained that way every time I was home. I attended countless doctor appointments, chemotherapy treatments, all the while my goddess withered away.  
  
It was the summer before my fourth year. Her doctor knew the treatments weren't helping, and they soon stopped. Hanneli was living in the hospital; I visited every day, as did all her family, including her father. It was the first time I'd met him,... that night, she kissed me... she... heart failure.  
  
Five pairs of eyes looked into my own. Five pairs of arms found their way around my sides. Only Ron had words, words that summed up everyone's innermost feelings.  
  
"Wow,"  
  
*When somebody loved me  
Everything was beautiful  
Every hour spent together  
Lives within my heart  
When she loved me.*  
  
~.~  
  
This is in memory of QT, AKA Michael Cuccione, from 2ge+her, the lovable spoof band from MTV.   
  
A/N:: Like Scott Adams, I've probably killed more people than any other fanfic author. Go Lemming!! Go Banana!!   
  
*Palurdo = Spanish for "peasant, boor" 


End file.
